Urban heat islands & mobility analysis with QGIS

Use QGIS and open urban datasets to detect heat stress zones, analyze mobility flows, and produce actionable maps for smart city decision-makers.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

1. Import and process urban datasets from OpenStreetMap, Copernicus, and municipal open data portals
2. Detect and map Urban Heat Island (UHI) zones using Landsat/Sentinel-2 thermal imagery in QGIS
3. Analyze pedestrian and vehicle mobility flows using Origin-Destination spatial matrices
4. Overlay infrastructure layers (green spaces, transit networks, building density) for multi-criteria urban analysis
5. Produce interactive web maps for city planners using QGIS2Web

Session Agenda

0:00 – 0:20 Introduction: GIS as the backbone of smart city planning

0:20 – 0:50 Urban data sources: OSM, Copernicus, municipal open data — import & preprocessing

0:50 – 1:20 Urban Heat Island detection: thermal band processing with Sentinel-2 in QGIS

1:20 – 1:40 Mobility flow mapping: OD matrices, heatmaps, and network analysis

1:40 – 2:40 Hands-on lab: participants map UHI zones and mobility hotspots for a real city district

2:40 – 3:00 Q&A, feedback, and next steps

Target Audience

Urban planners, municipal GIS officers, smart city consultants, transport engineers, and architects working on territorial development projects.